The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. named Jim Wigand director of the new office of complex financial institutions. The new office was establish by the Dodd-Frank Act and will review non-bank financial companies deemed “systemically important” and bank holding companies with assets of more than $100 billion. The CFI also will implement the FDIC’s new authority for the orderly liquidations of banks and non-bank financial companies that fail. Wigand had been deputy director for franchise and asset marketing in the regulator’s division of resolutions and receiverships since 1997. “Jim’s decades of experience in resolutions, asset sales, structured finance and financial institution regulation uniquely position him to lead the CFI at a critically important time,” FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said. “Throughout this crisis, Jim has been a star performer, developing innovative resolution strategies for hundreds of failed banks, large and small, maximizing recoveries for the FDIC, while providing seamless protection to insured depositors,” she said. “He is a dedicated career public servant who is well qualified to lead the FDIC in its important charge from Congress to implement new resolution authority and end too big to fail.” The FDIC has closed about 150 banks this year after shuttering 140 in 2009. Most of the failed banks were smaller, regional players and some analysts have said the financial crisis is hitting smaller banks while big banks skate by. Dick Bove of Rochdale Securities recently told HousingWire there’s a lot of smaller banks out there that wrote “rotten loans and exotic mortgages” the past few years, and now are trying to replace bad money with good money, “but they’re not going to be competitive for years.” That seems to indicate more bank failures are on their way. “Everything Congress has done so far bodes well for larger banks,” Bove said. “Everything they’ve done seems to suggest too big to fail isn’t real, when what they’ve actually done will have it around forever.” Wigand’s appointment is effective Dec. 31. Write to Jason Philyaw.